At Skype, our aim is to offer products that delight people and enable the world’s conversations. Part of our vision means coming up with new ways for our community of more than 338 million registered users to stay in touch.

Skypecasts is one of the many features that we’ve developed to enable these conversations. What we’ve learned by watching how the product is used and through user feedback is that Skypecasts is not quite measuring up to our high standards and expectations for connecting and delighting our users.

As a result, we have made the decision to retire Skypecasts from active service for the immediate future, effective 12 noon BST on Monday, 1st September 2008.

This decision is consistent with Skype’s efforts to prioritise resources towards the products and areas of innovation that that will have the biggest impact on the Skype community.

Philosophically, we continue to believe in the concept of Skypecasts – group communication on a specific topic of interest. As such, we will look for ways to reintroduce this functionality in a way that lives up to both our and our community’s high standards.

To those people who regularly enjoy hosting and taking part in Skypecasts, we apologise for the inconvenience and hope we’ll be able to release a new and improved Skypecasts product in the not too distant future. We’ll be sure to let you know when that day arrives.

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